


Push Pops

by SymphonicWinds



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, F/M, also im canadian so everything is gonna be in metric measurements lol, i will literally fight for them being happy, im not out here trying to cause ship wars y'all are valid, imperial who??? we dont know her, lmao im in 3h hell help me, oh also el and dimi are on good terms as step-siblingd, spoiler: this is a comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-11-24 01:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SymphonicWinds/pseuds/SymphonicWinds
Summary: Everyone wants to fuck Byleth but only one person can. Who will win?!?! (Mortal Kombat music)





	1. Chapter 1

Edelgard’s mind was in full gay panic mode as she sat in her seminar. She had spent the last twenty years of her life minding her own business and figuring out how to overthrow the current political system and her dumbass self had to be distracted by her.

Byleth walked into the room and began to set up her PowerPoint for the day. She was wearing a very formfitting dress shirt that showed off the outline of her bra with a pencil skirt that hugged her ass way too fucking well. Byleth also had the absolute audacity to only be twenty-seven and working on her PhD.

Full. Blown. Gay. Panic.

Beside her, Edelgard noticed that Dimitri wasn’t looking at their professor, but rather, frantically messaging a WhatsApp group called “BLU CREW” with a noticeable blush on his cheeks. He kept stealing glances at Byleth as his fingers trampled over his keyboard. His typing almost echoed through their classroom and she could feel the thirst coming off him. Oh. Oh no. No way.

He was not going to get her.

Edelgard opened her own WhatsApp Web and messaged Dorothea.

Edelgard: I think Dimitri wants to fuck our TA.  
Dorothea: Oh? The one you have a crush on?

She should have expected Dorothea to notice her pining but the shock and embarrassment flooded over her anyway.

Dorothea: yeah, so the same one.  
Dorothea: Ok. I’m gonna message Sylvain and get back to you on this. Dimitri has had a history of trying to fuck anything that moves, so I’ll see if I can redirect his gaze to some poor boy.   
Edelgard: you’re the best  
Dorothea: I love you too edieee

Edelgard’s muscles relaxed as she switched to her open Word document and began taking notes. Dorothea’s promise of getting rid of competition relaxed Edelgard enough to distract her from Byleth’s endowed figure and commanding voice.

Byleth had just called break when Claude slid into the seat next to Edelgard.

“Hey Princess,” Claude placed his RGB three-thousand-dollar gaming laptop next to her ultrabook and swivelled the seat to face her.

“I see you’re in time for break, so you’re earlier than usual, Claude.” They were friends, but she enjoyed throwing shade at him. A sloppy grin broke out on Claude’s face. “You know I couldn’t miss a class with my favourite teacher.”

Edelgard frowned in confusion. “Favourite teacher?”

“Yeah, I could spend all day staring at Byleth.” Edelgard’s frown continued to grow.

“I see.” She would send Hubert to scout for information on Claude, then. She didn’t want to throw too much at Dorothea. As if he was psychic (although, she wouldn’t be surprised if her was), Hubert messaged her.

Hubert: I hear that you are trying to find information on Dimitri’s love affairs? Is there anything you want to talk about?

Edelgard closed her laptop. She would deal with him later.

“Okay, before you try to lecture me on trying to fuck my teacher, hear me out. I’m 22. She’s 27. A five-year age gap isn’t that big of a deal. Plenty of people who end up getting married have eight or ten years apart! It’s probably fine. Probably.”

“I don’t mean to offend you Claude, but you could probably do better. And more realistic. You’re a handsome guy and you can get anyone you want on campus. I’m sure you have dozens of guys and girls falling over themselves to date you, so I think you should see what’s before you before going for something unattainable.” She placed a friendly hand on Claude’s arm to create a sense of familiarity between them. She didn’t like to manipulate her friends, but she was speaking the truth. Byleth was probably out of his reach and he would do just fine with literally anyone else.

Unfortunately, Claude wasn’t buying it. “Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me to be ambitious? Yeah, I could take anyone I want on campus – and I’ve already taken quite a few –” Edelgard’s “yikes” meter went up slightly, “but right now, my eyes are on the big prize. And that prize is Byleth.”

“You can do whatever you want Claude, but I think it’s a bad idea.”

“Why? Because you want her for yourself?” Edelgard nearly spat out her tea. She quickly swallowed what was in her mouth and began wiping her mouth with her handkerchief to cover the blush on her face. Claude’s sly grin only grew wider.

“Bingo. Well, break is almost done, and I see Teach-” Byleth had just entered in with Starbucks and was shuffling through people, “is back as well. We’ll discuss this later Princess.” Claude turned away from Edelgard to boot up his monster PC and leaving her completely out played.

Beside her, Dimitri took out one of his headphones and noticed the mess that was now Edelgard.

“Did you need help, Edelgard?”

“I’m okay, thank you Dimitri.”

She was so fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

Claude prided himself on being able to read people – it was a necessity, given his ambition to enter politics – and Edelgard and Dimitri were open books to him. He figured that he could easily sweep the professor off her feet and into his bed, but he didn’t want Hubert trying to poison him or Dedue to straight up murder him. So, he figured that a contest was in order, for the sake of his own skin.

Claude created a group chat with Edelgard and Dimitri and began typing.

HOUSE HEADS  
Claude: So it’s no secret that all of us want to fuck the professor.  
Edelgard: I have no idea where you came to that conclusion.  
Claude: Oh, did you already forget the conversation we had in seminar today? Or should I remind you?  
Dimitri: I have no intention on having any sexual or personal relationship with the professor. She is our TA.  
Claude: That’s not these screenshots say.

Claude forwarded the screenshots he bribed out of Sylvain and sent them into the group.

BLU CREW  
Dimitri: guys help I’m hard in class  
Sylvain: how, did you see my ass?  
Dimitri: I would never be turned on by you. It’s Byleth. She’s wearing … revealing clothing  
Sylvain: take a picture. Right now.  
Dimitri: may I remind you that you are in a committed relationship, Sylvain?  
Sylvain: yeah and? I’ll forward the pics to Dorothea later, nbd.   
Dimitri: you disgust me  
Sylvain: at least I don’t pop boners in class, your High-ness.   
Dimitri: THAT WAS ONE TIME.

Claude chuckled as he watched Edelgard and Dimitri repeatedly begin to type and then stop. He had them cornered.

HOUSE HEADS  
Edelgard: what are you after, Claude?  
Claude: I want to live.  
Edelgard: get to the chase.  
Claude: jeez, so pushy. Alright, so we all want to fuck the professor. Can we agree on this.  
Edelgard: fine.  
Dimitri: When I find Sylvain, he’ll wish he never had a penis.   
Claude: … okay, anyway. So we all want to fuck the professor but theres no way she’s going to fuck all of us AND if only one of us gets to, then I’m sure they’ll end up at the bottom of a pond somewhere. I propose that we have a contest: we each have one shot at getting the professor on a date and whoever is successful can fuck Byleth without the other two doing a single thing to kill the winner.  
Dimitri: I told you, I have no intentions on fucking Byleth.  
Claude: and what, you’re just going to go to the washroom every week to jerk off to her? Take this shot, your princeliness to try to score. I’ve heard the rumours of how you were in first year; I bet you could do it if you try... well, that’s assuming she doesn’t fall for me first.   
Edelgard: I’m in. I’ll crush you two just like I do in Smash.   
Claude: When it comes to love, I never lose princess. Well Dimitri? Are you in?  
Dimitri: I’m in.  
Claude: Excellent. So to make this fair, we have to meet in person to announce our intentions AND we have to post our results in this group chat. Don’t worry; none of your housemates will find out about this. This is between us. I know you both are free after next week’s seminar with Byleth; why don’t we meet then?  
Dimitri: fine.  
Edelgard: very well then.  
Claude: and may the best person win.

Claude locked his phone and kicked back on his gaming chair with a Cheshire grin on his face. This was going to be easy.


	3. Chapter 3

Dimitri was still apprehensive about the contest he gotten himself into with Claude and Edelgard. Yes, he might have a no-longer-secret affection for Byleth, but he respected the university enough to rein his unsuitable desires and maintain a student-teacher relationship with her.

But if he had to be forced into a situation where he could court Byleth and win her over, he certainly wasn’t going to let that slip away. Even though he was going to kick Sylvain’s ass, Sylvain was the only person who could help him out with something like this, so he called him.

“Hey your High-ness, this better be good because I was about to go down on Dorothea.” Dimitri shoved the mental image of Dorothea and Sylvain having sex out of his head and breathed deeply.

“When will you stop calling me that?”

“When you learn not to eat a whole bag of Mercedes’ weed gummies.” Dimitri had spent the last 16 years of his life dealing with Sylvain’s teasing, but it never got easier to deal with, especially when he had business with him.

“Anyway, I need your help.”

“Oh? Is there someone that you want to go down on? Because last time I checked, which was about two years ago, you didn’t need my help finding people to fuck.” Why didn’t Sylvain let anything go?

“Yes, well, I don’t plan on being inebriated for this one. I need your help asking Byleth on a date.”

Sylvain whistled; the sound nearly ruptured Dimitri’s eardrum. He should have had him on speaker.

“Byleth? And here I thought you didn’t want to “ruin your student-teacher relationship with her.” By the way, you can’t see this, but I’m using heavy air quotes here.”

Dimitri didn’t want to tell Sylvain about the bet he had made with Claude and Edelgard; one, Claude made it clear that no one was supposed to know about it and two, Sylvain would never let him live it down. Not like Sylvain ever let him live anything down.

“I’ve changed my mind. No time better than the present, right?” Dimitri was never a good liar, not even to himself. He could tell that his tone sounded incredibly off pitch, but he had to lie.

“… Right. Anyway, I’ve never tried to fuck a teacher before, but if I was… I’d probably get her somewhere off campus and then ask her out. You can’t really drop into her office hour and pounce on her because she’s gonna see you as a kid and her as an adult. I would probably ask her to go to an event on campus and then make your move.”

Dimitri mulled over what Sylvain said and decided that it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

“I’ll think about it. Thanks Sylvain.”

“Don’t mention it, your highness. Now, I have someone to go down on myself.” In the background, Dorothea shouted, “He’s not actually eating me out.” Sylvain’s voice cut back in, “Oops, gotta go dimitri, bye!”

What events could Dimitri invite Byleth too? He opened his Macbook Pro and started checking the school calendar, but nothing was coming up within the next month. They were in the painful time between midterms and finals, so there weren’t any “stress busting” activities and any froshie events would happen in the New Year. He doubted that he had until January to invite the professor somewhere. He sighed and put away his laptop. He still had a week until he met up with Claude and Edelgard. He would probably figure something out

*

He did not figure anything out.

Dimitri would have liked to pretend that he was too busy with assignments to think about something as dumb as this bet, but in reality he didn’t do much besides nursing the bump he got from getting “vibe checked” by Hilda and frantically searching for places that he could invite the Professor to without being creepy. He decided that he would meet up with Claude and Edelgard and drop out. He would deal with the screenshots being leaked all over GMU and possibly his hometown.

Sitting through Byleth’s seminar with Edelgard and Claude beside him was torture. He couldn’t concentrate; he felt like they were analyzing his every move. He bet that Claude and Edelgard both had intricate plans to woo Byleth, while he borrowed an idea from Sylvain. He deserved to lose; even if he had some amazing plan, Byleth wouldn’t be interested in him anyway. She would be better off with one of them, anyone besides him.

Finally, Byleth dismissed them and Dimitri slouched outside to see Edelgard and Claude waiting for him.

“Hey, your Princeliness, have a plan?” Claude was as cheerful as ever. His confidence was radiating off of him, crushing whatever confidence Dimitri had into the ground and six feet under.

“We’ll talk about it later. Can we go somewhere else? I don’t want to be talking about … our bet … when she’s right there.” Dimitri motioned to Byleth, who was in class answering a student’s question.

“We’ll go to the Yellow HQ then. The house should be empty right now; everyone else has class until 7 on Tuesdays.” Claude really was running the show. Edelgard and Dimitri looked at each other; Dimitri felt a psychic connection of panic cross between them and they both nodded at Claude’s suggestion at the same time. It was freaky but also reassuring that Dimitri was not alone in this.

The ride back to Claude’s house was full of tension. Claude tried filling the dead air with some conversation, but Edelgard’s face was turned towards the window and she refused to acknowledge them. Dimitri was way too nervous to speak and Edelgard’s silence wasn’t helping either. He had known Edelgard since they were kids – they were stepsiblings, after all – and he knew that El was not okay right now. He offered his hand to her; her eyes flashed towards Claude, making sure that he wasn’t looking at them before hesitantly taking it.

By the time Claude had parked into his driveway, Dimitri felt slightly better. He let go of Edelgard’s hand and checked his phone to see a text from her.

Edelgard: thanks for that. I felt like I was about to throw up.  
Dimitri: I felt the same way. Regardless of what happens, there will be no hard feelings towards us.  
Edelgard: yeah.

Together, they stepped outside and followed Claude into the house. For student housing, their living room was big – in Dimitri’s house, much of the living room was turned into bedrooms to accommodate as many students as possible – with a TV and couches for all of them to comfortably sit on. Claude flopped onto the biggest couch that was directly facing the TV, which left Dimitri and Edelgard to squeeze together on the smaller adjacent couch.

“I’ll go first, since you two seem like you’re about to throw up.” Claude’s ability to read people was straight up disturbing sometimes. “I’m gonna invite Teach to a house party, here, next week Friday. I have a few remixes that haven’t been released yet that I’m gonna debut at the house party.”

Something in Dimitri’s mind clicked and he blurted out, “I’m going to get the Professor to go home with me then, at your party. I will enlist the help of my friends to persuade her to come over after the party.” A surge of adrenaline coursed through Dimitri’s entire body as a huge wave of relief hit him. He didn’t have to drop out after all. He didn’t have to worry about Ingrid finding out about his boners and being the laughingstock of the entire campus. He was good.

Unfortunately, Claude didn’t look impressed. “I thought we agreed that we weren’t supposed to tell our friends about this. This is a solo mission; no knights can save you here, Prince.”

The confidence that Dimitri had mustered burst like a balloon. So, he was back to being completely screwed.

“But I won’t object to you trying to court her at my party. It’s better than you flaking out of the contest entirely.” The balloon inflated, slightly. Claude probably knew that he was planning on dropping, which was why he was giving him the soft pass. Dimitri remembered the last time he had masturbated to Byleth and decided that he would take it.

“Okay, then that’s my plan. Do you have anything in mind Edelgard?”

“I think the best approach is to just ask her out for coffee during her office hour.”

Claude’s face went through a half-dozen of expressions before settling with a neutral face. “Okay then, that’s settled then. We’ve announced our intentions and the game is now on. May the best person win.” Claude stretched out his hand to shake Dimitri’s and he took it, then Claude took Edelgard’s hand before relaxing back onto the couch.

“Um, aren’t you going to drive us home?” Dimitri didn’t know of any bus routes to his house and he didn’t have his bike on him.

“Oh yeah. Forgot you couldn’t drive. Very well then, hop in kids.” Claude whisked them out of the house and drove them home.


	4. Chapter 4

Simple plans were the easiest to execute. Or at least, that’s what Edelgard’s reasoning was, when she was making her plan to win the contest. And hypothetically, it was simple. Meet Byleth at her office hour, ask her out to coffee and then proceed from there. Simple. Easy. Efficient.

But as Edelgard stood outside of Byleth’s office, she found herself unable to knock on the door. Her fist hovered two centimetres away; she could knock at any minute. Byleth would be there to answer her and she would be allowed in. It was supposed to be simple.

Byleth opened the door, knocking Edelgard back as the door swung open.

“Sorry Edelgard, I wasn’t expecting you to be so close to the door. Are you okay?” Edelgard’s vision blurred as she tried to recover from being hit with a door and found her face centimetres away from Byleth’s. Her entire face went red and she spider-crawled away from her teacher in shock.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, thank you!” Edelgard crawled her way up against the wall into a standing position. She couldn’t feel the pain from being hit in the face with a door; Byleth’s beauty overwhelmed any other sensations she had.

“Are you coming in then?” Byleth’s voice broke her out of her stupor. Edelgard straightened herself up, nodded and marched into Byleth’s office and sat into a nearby chair. Byleth’s office was pretty much what you expected out of any TA; a single, decade old PC sat at the corner of her large desk with an assortment of papers strewn across the table. She was probably in the middle of marking their last papers. Byleth sank into the worn office chair in front of her and gestured at her to talk.

“So, uh,” Edelgard looked around the room for inspiration – she avoided looking directly at Byleth’s breasts -- and her eyes settled on the papers in front of her, “About my paper. Did you read it? How was it?”

“I don’t think I’ve gotten to it yet. Is there anything else that you needed?” Byleth’s gaze pierced directly into her soul. Edelgard wasn’t sure whether she was aroused or terrified; she hoped it was the latter, not the former.

“No! No, I mean, yes, actually. Do you like coffee?” She was going to ask Byleth out to coffee. That’s what she was doing. Right now.

“Not really.”

Oh. Oh god, what was she supposed to do now then?

“Tea?”

“Not particularly.”

She had fucked up. She really, really, really fucked up. Edelgard thought of calling Hubert, confessing the entire thing, her entire life, all of her mistakes, everything to him and dropping out of GMU entirely. She would be able to transfer to another school – probably not one with as high prestige – but she would be able to move on from what was probably the most embarrassing moment in her entire life.

“Oh. Claude is having a party next Friday.” As usual, Byleth’s voice called Edelgard back from the darkness that was her mind.

“Do you plan on going?” Edelgard’s brain had fizzled out at this point. Nothing was going to plan; if she was going to die, it would at least be by Byleth’s hand. “Dimitri and I are already planning on attending.”

“If I don’t have anything to do, why not.”

The wires in Edelgard’s brain began to reconnect, surging her with new life. Maybe she wasn’t completely fucked after all. She knew that she was stealing Dimitri’s plan, but between having to leave GMU and her integrity, she would rather throw away her integrity.

“I hope I’ll see you then. Hubert, Petra, Dorothea, Caspar, Lindhardt, Bernadetta, Ferdinand and I will all be there. I’m sure all of Dimitri’s friends and Claude’s friends will be there as well. I’m sure that it will be a lively celebration of the semester thus far.” She stretched out her hand to shake and Byleth took it. Oh yeah. She was never washing her hand ever again.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll look forward to it.”

Edelgard nodded before excusing herself out of the room to cry in the nearest washroom.


	5. Chapter 5

Everything was going according to plan. The party was two hours away and everything was set up. Claude brought out his DJing desk out to the living room, along with his laptop, speakers and a small crate of monster energy drinks for himself. The pizza was poised to arrive at 8 PM exactly and Hilda had bought a full tray of weed brownies from Mercedes. He had bought enough drinks to knock out Raphael and he made a custom-made fruit punch that would inebriate the Prince. Claude, of course, knew about Dimitri’s escapades during first year. Releasing the kraken was a gamble – this could end in Dimitri winning by fucking Teach right there – but if he could get Dimitri’s gaze redirected at someone else, then he would be out of the competition entirely. And Edelgard? She was supposed to talk to Teach yesterday, which could mean that she already won. However, given that she didn’t announce anything to them – and Edelgard absolutely would – it was safe to assume that she choked and was probably unsuccessful.

And that would leave Claude the remaining contestant and the eventual winner.

The last thing to do would be to put up an Instagram story – and in Teach’s case, email -- to remind everyone to come. He posed next to the drinks and stuck out his tongue before snapping a picture and captioning it, “DON’T FORGET TO REACH TONIGHT @ 7. DM ME FOR ADDRESS. COME THRU GMUUUU”

He then spent the next hour replying to DMs and sending a screenshot of his IG story to Byleth with the address attached. He wasn’t sure whether she would actually come; she sent him a reply yesterday, yes, but she could easily flake on him, which is why he was sending a gentle reminder email. Teach was the one variable in this story, but Claude was determined to end this with his own happily ever after.

“I got your weed gummies,” Hilda dropped a small bag of gummy bears onto Claude’s face.

“Bless up.” He removed the bag off his face and stuffed it into his pocket. He would save these for later. “Thanks boo.”

“Just make sure to send me the answer bank for our social science final.”

“Yes ma’am. There are weed brownies in the kitchen if you want some.” Claude got up to see Hilda already cutting a small chunk for herself.

“Don’t you remember who bought these?” Hilda said, as she popped a chunk into her mouth. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to spend the night listening to your music sober.”

“Ouch.” Claude put on a puppy face, “You wound me, Miss Groneil.”

“Uh huh. Well, if you need me, I’ll be in my room with Marianne.” Hilda took a bottle of Crown Royal and sauntered up to her room.

“Make sure to use protection!” Claude called. 

“Go fuck yourself!” Hilda replied.

Claude laughed as Hilda slammed her bedroom door loudly above him. He checked his phone. It was go time.


	6. Chapter 6

Byleth was late. She was driving 10km/h, trying to weave through the mess of kids on the street. What the fuck was happening. Byleth briefly debated on going home, but she was already trapped between a mess of people and cars and it would be way more hassle than it was worth trying to get out, so she parked on the street and checked Google Maps to see where she was headed. Thankfully, she was only a few houses away from her destination and made it there easily. She arrived at the door and knocked. She could hear the music – Claude’s music, presumably – from outside the house and she doubt that even ringing the doorbell would do much good. So she turned the handle and found that it was unlocked.

Byleth hadn’t been to a house party since her undergrad days and stepping into Claude’s house transported her back to those memories. There were people everywhere – sitting on the couch, the floor, on the stairs – all with red solo cups in their hands. She weaved through the drunken kids and spotted Claude, who was in the corner of the room DJing.

“Yo, professor!” Claude waved her down. “Glad you could make it!”

“I thought that this was going to be a listening party,” Byleth gestured around the room, “These kids don’t seem like they’re listening to your music.”

“Eh, they’re fine.” Claude smiled, and offered his hand to Byleth. She accepted it, but instead of shaking it, Claude took it and kissed it. Byleth blinked, processing what just happened and withdrew her hand from him. Claude did seem to be the overly friendly type. That was probably his way of saying hello. Probably.

“Would you like a drink? We have pretty much everything you need.” Claude gestured to the kitchen, where there was a large assortment of alcohol and pizza on the table.

“No thanks; I’m driving home. Thank you though.”

Suddenly, Byleth heard a large crash behind them; Claude’s face dropped.

“Heeyyy professssssor,” Dimitri was what dropped behind them, but he got up, seemingly unaffected by the fall. “How you doinnn’ tonightttt.” Byleth could smell the alcohol on his breath. He was totally wasted.

“Do you need to sit down Dimitri?” Byleth took Dimitri’s arm and sat him down in an empty corner of the room. He slumped against the wall, forcing Byleth to support him with her shoulder.

“You smell good... Like violets…” Oh. The new fabric softener she used worked. Excellent.

“Thank you, Dimitri.”

“You know…. I haaveee a Tesla out baaack. Deedue drives it but I have a keey. You wanna go for a ride?” Dimitri had a sloppy grin plastered on his face; he was clearly unfit to drive. Byleth dug out the breathalyser she kept in her purse -- a souvenir from her cop days – and told Dimitri to blow. Yup. He registered as a .15. Definitely not safe to drive.

“Dimitri. You’re drunk. You can’t drive.”

“I caaan do whatever I waaantt, including you.” Dimitri lifted his head off Byleth to wink at her. She swallowed her disgust. She needed him home, asap.

“Is Dedue here tonight?” Hopefully Dimitri was smart enough to bring a designated driver.

“He… he…” Dimitri’s head lolled onto Byleth’s shoulder again. “I don’t wannna go home.”

Byleth pushed Dimitri off of her and repositioned him to lean against the wall, which gave her the freedom to take out her phone. “What’s your address?”

“Why, wanna come home with me? It’s 1176 Fhirdiad Drive.” Byleth ignored the sultry stare that Dimitri was trying to give her and put the address into Uber. Sure enough, an Uber popped up and Byleth helped Dimitri out of the house and into the car.

“Professor… do you wanna see my lance collection?” Dimitri hadn’t stopped talking the entire walk out. “They’re… really sharp. I’ll show you my prized lance if you come to my room…”

“Maybe next time, Dimitri. I’ll see you in class next week.” Byleth helped Dimitri into the Uber.

“Byeeee professor,” Dimitri called from the passenger’s seat. The Uber drove away.

Well, this was going worse than she expected. When Claude mentioned a listening party, she imagined a few people in a room chilling with Claude as he played his new tracks. She did follow him on soundcloud; his stuff wasn’t bad, and she liked supporting her kids. But this was way too much for her to handle. Byleth decided that she would talk to Claude briefly and then head out. She headed into the house and ran straight into Edelgard.

“Oh, hello professor!” Edelgard, thankfully, didn’t seem to be drunk. Well, she could catch up with Edelgard for a bit before seeing Claude.

“Hi Edelgard. How are you liking the party?”

“I’m not really the type for partying, but all of my friends are here, and this is Claude’s party, so I didn’t want to miss out.” For some reason, despite how flushed Edelgard was, she was talking completely normally. Usually, Edelgard was a stammering mess around her; maybe she was drunk after all and the alcohol was acting as liquid courage. Byleth didn’t mind though; it was nice to talk to someone coherent after dealing with Dimitri.

“I was the same when I was your age. I think it’s really sweet of you to come out and support your friends.” Byleth smiled at her and Edelgard’s face went even redder. Hmm. Maybe it was the alcohol hitting her.

“Sweet… like a cookie, right? Do you like baking, professor?”

“No, but I’m actually a pretty good cook.” Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this, as faculty, but she figured that it wouldn’t hurt. “Here, give me your phone.” Byleth entered in her Instagram on Edelgard’s account and hit follow. “I actually post recipes and pictures of the food I make as a hobby. It’s my personal Instagram though, so don’t tell anyone that you have it. Here, I’ll accept you and follow you back.” Byleth followed suit and handed Edelgard her phone back. Oh no. Edelgard’s face was at an all time red and she looked like she was about to faint. Byleth quickly scooped Edelgard up and carried her into the living room.

“Sorry Professor,” Edelgard mumbled, “this is so embarrassing…”

“It’s fine, don’t worry.” Byleth shoved some kid off the couch and rested Edelgard on it as the kid rolled off. She pressed her hand onto Edelgard’s forehead; it was really hot.

“Who else is with you tonight?” She was kind of glad that she came after all. She could at least stop her kids from dying.

“Petra… dorothea… Hubert… caspar… lindhardt… Ferdinand…” Edelgard counted her friends on her fingers; Byleth quickly took them and rested her arms onto of her stomach.

“Just rest. Don’t spend any unnecessary energy. I’ll go grab one of your friends to help you out.” As much as she wanted to stay with Edelgard to make sure that she was okay, it was almost midnight and she wanted to go home. Byleth went back to Claude, who was chilling by his set up.

“Hey teach! You came back for me!” Claude’s smile dropped as soon as he saw Byleth’s concerned expression. “What’s up?”

“Edelgard needs someone to look after her; we were just talking and then she almost fainted. I brought her to the couch but I have to go soon. Can you bring any of her friends here?” Instead of worry, Claude just shook his head and pulled out his phone to call someone.

“Dorothea? Yeah, it’s Edie. She’s on the couch. Can you look after her? Okay. Thanks. Bye.” Claude hung up and shook his head as if he knew what was wrong with her.

“Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

“Yeah… don’t worry professor. She’ll be fine. But now you can spend some time with me, right?” Another cheeky smile. Byleth frowned slightly; was he not taking Edelgard's condition seriously? Byleth briefly debated on arguing with Claude about it, but figured it wasn't worth it. He got someone to take care of her. That's all that mattered.

“I actually need to head out now. Thanks for inviting me though; I’ll see you on Monday.” Claude’s smile dropped, but she took him in for a hug to make up for it and rushed off to go home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was without a charger for a week so this got delayed a bit. This was originally going to be one huge chapter, but I figured that it's been too long without an update so I'll split it up.

“I WON!” Edelgard shouted. Hubert jumped, jerking the wheel slightly and then looked at her warily.

“Edelgard, please do not shout in the car.” Edelgard paid him no mind and instead chose to screenshot her follower page and forwarded it to Dimitri and Claude.

Edelgard: I WON BITCHES  
Claude: Getting her Instagram isn’t really winning, you know. You didn’t even ask her out.  
Edelgard: hmm? Is this jealousy I hear? Did you get her to follow you?  
Claude: no. But that still isn’t a win.  
Edelgard: well, in this chat of LOSERS, I was the CLOSEST to winning, therefore I was the winner.  
Claude: Whatever floats your boat princess. It’s not like I won tonight; Teach pretty much brushed me off and I’m pretty sure the Prince is currently resting off his werewolf phase.  
Edelgard: I won, I won, I won!  
Claude: this is a lot of gloating, even from you.  
Edelgard: don’t be such a sore lossser Claude. It’s okay; Hilda will marry you and you’ll both be invited to mine and the Professor’s wedding.  
Claude: You are way over your head now.

Now that Edelgard was privy to such private information that only she had access to, she opened Byleth’s Instagram page. As promised, there were many shots of food – wow, she was an amazing cook – but there were also pictures of her and a man? A rush of emotions hit Edelgard all at once; who was this man? A boyfriend? A fiancé? A husband? She shut her eyes and braced herself before hitting the picture to see the description.

_Happy anniversary, @_seteth_. _

Edelgard’s heart shattered into a million pieces. She took a screenshot of the photo and sent it to Dimitri and Claude.

Claude: … ouch.

Fat, hot tears began rolling off Edelgard’s face. She tried to conceal her tears by wiping them onto her shirt, but Hubert noticed.

“Is something the matter? I thought you said you just won.”

She couldn’t tell him about their bet; she didn’t even tell him about Byleth. She tilted her head up to stop the tears from rolling down her face, but she was unsuccessful. Hubert sighed, pulled over and took out his phone.

“Here.” His phone was calling Dorothea.

“Edie? What’s up?” Hubert began to drive again.

“It’s-it’s-it’s” Edelgard couldn’t speak through her hiccupping. “It’s Byleth.”

“Did something happen between you two? You saw her at the party, right? You looked pretty happy back there.” Dorothea was the best. She loved her so much.

“She-she-she-she-she’s dating, married, engaged to someone else,” Edelgard sobbed. She felt like such a fool. Of course, the first person she ever loved was with someone else. Her fucking rotten luck.

“Oh Edie,” Dorothea’s voice was dripping with sympathy and love, “It’s okay. Sometimes these things happen. But it’s not your fault; you didn’t know.”

“She-she’s my fi-first l-l-l-l-love,” Edelgard’s voice was growing thicker the more she cried, “A-and s-s-she’s en-engaged to a man. I-I-I fucked up. I w-wish I never got her account.”

Hubert pulled up to the Red Gang’s house and parked. He texted something to Edelgard and stepped out and went into the house.

Hubert: I’m leaving the door unlocked for you; please leave when you are ready. There will be food for you inside as well.

Edelgard smiled. Hubert did care about her, even if he showed it in a different way than other people.

Edelgard: okay, thank you so much.  
Hubert: It’s my pleasure.

Edelgard put Hubert’s phone back on her ear to hear Dorothea say, “If you want, me, you, Petra and Mercie can all go to a gay bar together. Pick up chicks? Find a new girl to have gay panic over?”

Despite her feelings, Edelgard smiled. It was nice to have people who cared about you. “It’s okay, Thea. Thank you for listening.”

“Are you sure? I can be on the phone as long as you want.”

In the background, Lin shouted, “No way, we have Game of Thrones to watch together!” to which Dorothea shouted back, “Edie is way more important than Game of Thrones!”

Lindhardt gasped. “YOU TAKE THAT BACK.” Edelgard heard a thud through the phone and Linhardt’s cry in pain.

Edelgard laughed. “It sounds like you’re busy. I’ll call you if I need you okay?”

“Okay. I love you Edie.”

“I love you too.”

Edelgard hung up the phone and sobbed into her hands.


	8. Chapter 8

Dimitri woke up with a wicked headache. He was 100% sure that he didn’t have anything to drink last night, but his headache told him otherwise. Hopefully he didn’t do anything stupid. In a haze, he checked social media for pictures of himself and thankfully nothing came up. He saw he had hundreds of unchecked messages and swiped them away; he would deal with those later. A loud – way too fucking loud – knock jolted him out of his haze.

“Dimitri, are you there?” It was Dedue.

“Yes, come in.”

Dedue burst in, his concern plastered all over his face. “I couldn’t find you last night, so I spent all night looking for you. How did you get home?”

Dimitri tried to remember, but his headache was more prominent than his thoughts. “I don’t know.”

“The boar took an uber home.” Felix decided to make an appearance. “I was the one who let the fool in.”

“An uber…?” Dimitri faintly remembered getting into a car and waving goodbye to the professor. His stomach dropped; oh god, what happened that night?

“Of course, you wouldn’t remember,” Felix rolled his eyes, “You were piss-ass drunk. And here I thought you were “over” your sex spree.” Dimitri scrambled to piece together what memories he had of the party but found himself drawing a blank. Who else would have been there?

“Sylvain. Where’s Sylvain?” He needed answers.

“He’s at Dorothea’s place, obviously.” Dimitri jumped out of bed -- thankfully, he had slept in his clothes the night before, so he didn’t need to waste his time getting dressed – and hopped onto his bike to Dorothea and Lin’s apartment.

Dimitri had strong legs from his time biking around Garagg Mach and Fargheus, so he got to Dorothea’s apartment complex with ease. As soon as he got off his bike, his headache came back, but he ignored it and called Sylvain.

“Yooooo your High-ness,” Sylvain’s slurred as if he was still drunk.

“Where are you?”

“Between Dorothea’s legs.” Dimitri held back his gag reflex.

“I’m in front of the building. Can you let me in?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll come down.” Dimitri hung up and slipped his phone into his pocket. He fought his headache by punching the wall; the resulting pain in his hand was easier to deal with. Sylvain sauntered outside with a grin reminiscent of Claude’s smirk on his face.

“Hey Prince, what’s up?”

“What happened last night? How did I get back home? Felix said I took an uber, but I don’t remember anything.”

Sylvain burst out laughing; the noise rang in Dimitri’s ears, making him grip his head in pain.

“Oh man, do you really not remember what happened last night?”

Something in Dimitri broke.

“No, you fool. Of course, I don’t know. If I knew, why would I bike my ass over here and ask you about it in person? I’m exhausted, dehydrated and hungover and I didn’t even mean to drink last night but here I am. Hungover as fuck. All I want is to know what happened because I sure as hell didn’t spike my own damn drink.”

Sylvain’s laughter stopped immediately, and his face relaxed to a more concerned expression.

“Okay, clearly you’re not good right now. Let’s get you some water to take off some of your headache and make you food. We can talk when you’re feeling better.” Dimitri growled but nodded.

“Fine.”

Sylvain led him inside the building and up the elevator in silence; Dimitri was still brooding over his outburst and Sylvain was trying to push off Dimitri’s bad vibes. They eventually got to Dorothea’s apartment, where Sylvain pushed Dimitri onto the couch and got him some water.

“Drink. You need water right now.” Dimitri pouted and sipped. His ailment was so bad that he couldn’t think anymore. Dimitri vaguely heard Sylvain cooking while he stared into his drink. Sometime later, Sylvain pushed a plate onto Dimitri’s lap; it was loaded with eggs, a sliced avocado and toast with crackers.

“Eat this slowly and it’ll ease your hangover. If you eat too much at once you’re just gonna puke.”

Dimitri began to eat. His body welcomed the food – he probably didn’t eat last night – and as if by magic, his headache began to disappear. Was it a placebo or was Sylvain’s mystical breakfast working? Regardless of what it was, Dimitri’s rage subsided, and he cleared his throat.

“Sorry for yelling at you earlier, Sylvain. My symptoms,”

“You mean hangover.” Sylvain corrected with a wink.

Dimitri glared at him, “My symptoms got the best of me.”

“Whatever you say your High-ness. But don’t sweat it. I’m used to being yelled at… in bed.” Sylvain winked again. Dimitri immediately put his plate on the coffee table in front of him.

“Fuck off Sylvain.”

“Sorry, you know I had to. Anyway, about last night. You got wasted on something, I don’t know what it was. Maybe you grabbed someone elses’ drink? I dunno. Anyway, you got drunk, you tackled someone and then I saw her drag ur dumb ass into an uber. Who was that by the way? She was hot.”

Dimitri was going to be sick. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

“Sylvain, what did the girl look like? The one who put me in the uber.”

“Let’s see, 5’4, black hair, dark eyes, big boobs.”

Well, he figured that he’ll just die then. Or drop out and move back to Fargheus and never come to GMU. Change his name, lose an eye, grow long hair and spend his day in the wilderness, away from civilization. It seemed like his only option now.

“That was Byleth.”

“Oh my god, you mean the TA that you were gonna ask out? The one that you keep popping boners for? The one that I can hear you masturbate to in your room at night? That Byleth?”

Dimitri put his face in his hands and took deep breaths to calm his nausea. He was going to be okay. He was not going to puke on the floor.

“Shut the fuck up Sylvain.”

“I can see why you like her so much. If I wasn’t already fucking the hottest girl in Garagg Mach University, I would go after her. She’s like, the second hottest girl on campus; other than my lovely Dorothea, of course.”

“Shut. The fuck up. Sylvain.”

“Oh man, I can’t believe your ass got sent home by your teacher that you wanna fuck. Your ass got curbed so hard, call yourself Learner’s Permit.”

“Sylvain, if you don’t stop talking right now, I will forward every explicit conversation you’ve sent me to your father.”

This made Sylvain shut up.

Dimitri could hear Sylvain talking to someone – he was probably on the phone with Dorothea, or something – while he focused on breathing in and out, willing his nausea to go away. Some time later, Dimitri’s phone went off.

“So, you’re alive!” Claude probably won the bet then, considering how cheerful he was.

“Barely.” Good for him. Dimitri never wanted to do this in the first place; he was perfectly content with staying with the status quo. It was fine. “How was your time with Byleth? I assume that you’ll be going on a date with her soon.”

Claude’s voice fell flat. “Oh. You haven’t checked your texts, have you?”

“No.”

“I suggest you do so first. Call me back when you’re finished.” Claude hung up and Dimitri’s nausea hit an all time high, so he rushed to the washroom and puked his guts out. He emptied the contents of his stomach into Dorothea and Lindhardt’s toilet and pressed his face onto the cold floor. Now he felt incredibly tired, but at least he didn’t feel like vomiting anymore. He felt Sylvain walk into the washroom door and let himself get picked up and carried onto the couch.

“Okay, you officially need bedrest.” Sylvain left momentarily and reappeared with a glass of water. “Drink this slowly.”

Dimitri went back to sipping water, ignoring his fatigue as he read through his texts. His heart dropped as he followed Edelgard’s rollercoaster of emotions. He had liked the professor, sure, but he loved his little sister more. He would go see her as soon as he had the strength too. His fatigue caught up to him quickly though, and he fell asleep on the couch thinking of Edelgard’s sadness.


	9. Chapter 9

Claude read through the House Heads group chat again while chewing on his thoughts. Edelgard hadn’t picked up any of his calls or texts and she hadn’t been active on social media since last night. Claude knew that there was the possibility of Byleth already being in a relationship, but he supposed his friends didn’t consider it, and judging by Edelgard’s silence, she got crushed pretty hard. Claude wasn’t sure how Dimitri was feeling, other than very sick -- Claude spiked the punch pretty hard – but he figured that Dimitri wasn’t committed to the idea of wooing Byleth in the first place, so he would get over it easier than Edelgard.

Claude sighed. His friends were idiots, but they were still his friends and he wanted to make sure that they were okay. He checked the time on his Galaxy Watch – it had been around fifteen minutes since he hung up on Dimitri – and figured it was time to call him again.

“Hello?” Huh. He sounded sleepy. Probably crashed after puking or something.

“It’s me. So, did you read the convo?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“And how are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. I knew it wasn’t worth going after anyway.”

As always, Claude’s assumptions were correct. Excellent.

“Alright, so you’re good and I, if you were wondering, am also good.”

“I figure that you already planned for this.”

Claude grinned. “Of course, I did. So that leaves our princess. I don’t imagine her taking the news well, so I think we should cheer her up.”

“Please tell me that whatever your plan is, it’s drug free.”

“No alcohol here, your High-ness. Now, you and I know Edelgard very well. We are the best of chums, after all.”

“Doubt.” Dimitri interjected. “I’m pressing X for doubt on that one.”

Claude burst out laughing. “Where did you learn that one? And here I thought you were still pronouncing meme as ‘may-may’.”

“El taught me that one.”

“Ah, of course. Anyway, this brings me up to my plan: we hold a smash tournament. A house versus house versus house smash tournament.”

There was a small pause in the conversation. If Claude had to guess what Dimitri was thinking, it would be apprehension against battling Edelgard in smash in an informal tournament. Usually, they only faced off during official tourneys and if news of a tourney that included Edelgard (FlameEmperor__), Dimitri (theSavi0urKing) and himself (DJAlmyran) got out, there would be people banging down their doors to watch them play.

“So, we make everyone coming sign NDAs to make sure that this doesn’t get leaked and we pick different names to represent ourselves.” Oops. Claude accidentally finished his thought out loud without context. Damn it. Not again. “I mean, we’ll do that so we don’t get bombarded by the smash community.”

“Do you really think that this will lift Edelgard out of her cloud of misery?” Dimitri sounded skeptical, but if there was one thing that Claude was good at, it was steamrolling Dimitri’s doubt with his self-confidence.

“Of course it will. If there’s one thing that Edelgard loves more than pussy, it’s smash.”

“Do I have a choice in participating?”

“Nope! So we’ll plan this for next Sunday, which will be enough time for smooth out things with my lawyer and get all the paperwork done and you will be over your hangover by then. I’ll get all the consoles and copies of smash, so all you have to do is sit and be pretty, but you’re already pretty good at doing that. By the way, don’t tell Edelgard about this. I’m sure she’ll find a way to cancel everything and stew in her own misery, so this needs to be a surprise. Got it?”

“By your lead, Claude.”

Claude grinned. “That’s what I like to hear. Bye Prince, and make sure to drink lots of water.”

He hung up and patted himself on the back. Man, he really was the best friend ever.


	10. Chapter 10

Edelgard hadn’t left her room in a week. Lectures? Tutorials? Skipped. Food? Didn’t want it. Friends? Ignored and left on read. Hubert tried to lift her out of bed, once, but she managed to fend him off with admittedly dirty tactics (biting and hair pulling). Her despair felt like it was never-ending; her tears had long dried but her sorrow continued to cling to her, like a terrible disease. She knew that she was heart broken; perhaps she would die from the affliction, wither into dust like a flower’s corpse in the harsh winter. She was but a dead blossom buried under the snow of Fhirdiad, longing for the warm summer sun to grace her cold, dead body. But alas. She felt no reprieve. She was doomed, forced to suffer under the weight of her own-

Claude interrupted her thoughts by bursting into her room, screaming, “VIBE CHECK!” and throwing a plastic object at her, narrowly missing her face. Edelgard peeked over her covers to see what he hit her with. Was that… a gamecube controller?

“HEY BITCH. LET’S PLAY SMASH.”

For a second, the clouds parted, and she felt the warm sun on her face for the first time in forever. Was this… joy? Edelgard reached out and held the game cube controller in her hands. Her fingers naturally rested into the groves of the buttons. That’s right. She was the Flame Emperor, the best Fox main in the country. She looked up at Claude, her eyes slightly narrowed. Yes. Claude was her friend, but he was also DJAlmyran, the best Pikachu main in the country. It had been several months since EVO and Claude was clearly inviting her to a game, why not beat him into the ground a few times? Edelgard grinned.

“You’re on DJ.”

Claude returned her grin in full. “Excellent. We have the entire family downstairs, and everything is already hooked up. I just need you,” Claude pulled out a pen and documents seemingly out of nowhere, “to sign this NDA agreement so our little tournament doesn’t get livestreamed, recorded, screenshot or documented in any way, shape or form. We are professional players, Princess. We need to keep any unofficial tourneys lowkey.”

Edelgard took the papers out of Claude’s hands and signed them immediately. She needed to get her game on.

“Thank you!” Claude made the documents disappear again. “Everyone is waiting for you downstairs. Let’s go, El.” Claude made an exaggerated gesture of walking out, before winking at her and going downstairs. Normally, Edelgard would destroy anyone who would call her by her family nickname besides Dimitri and her parents, but, just this time, she smiled and took Claude’s lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks! I don't normally like to write notes but I just wanted to thank everyone for reading. I didn't think this would gain as much traction as it did, but I'm glad that everyone enjoyed it. I have a collection of this whole AU that spans beyond this fic called "Fire Emblem Three Houses AU" that is primarily made by myself and my friend that you guys can follow if you want to see more of this kind of stuff!


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